


Scarred

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gadreel noticed the first marks that evening, knowing they’d not been there when he’d been resurrected and brought changed to his new home’s doorsteps. These blemishes, faults, that now crossed him like the fresh marks of the first of lashes from a leather whip criss-crossed his skin like a network of reminders of who he really was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarred

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** "Gadreel's scarring starts showing up on his vessel (or they showed when he became human or whatever) and he tries to hide it from Sam at first, but he eventually finds out."
> 
> Turned out a little twisted.

* * *

 

On the first night Gadreel had lain upon the warmth of the bed without a particle of clothing on him, allowing the young hunter to simply watch for as long as he wanted to. That moment had been like none before it, intimate in a way that cast no shadow; Sam had stood and taken in the curves of his body before ever laying a finger upon the shapes, before ever trailing the form of his hip bone pushing against the soft skin that barely ever saw the light of sun and had remained a shade of cream in comparison to other areas of golden tan and softer tones of blushy red. He’d stayed and simply looked and Gadreel had felt at ease, knowing there was no judgement in the other’s eyes and nothing to judge in him, either, that the flesh he was now was flawless in all the senses that mattered to him, and he’d felt content and calm and without conflict although humanity was new to him and the loss still burned like a blue-tinted flame at other times.  
Only after memorizing the view in front of him had Sam chosen to take the steps to cross the distance between them -  he’d shown Gadreel another way of touching, taught him to make love in a single night that had lasted an eternity yet at once felt like no more than a couple minutes. Time to a mortal was an oddity; in the morning the hunter had fallen asleep beside the fallen angel and Gadreel had followed the example like it was natural for him to do.

But life wasn’t that easy. It was never simple, never blessed to continue as good as it seemed at first. He noticed the first marks the very next evening, knowing they’d not been there when he’d been resurrected and brought changed to his new home’s doorsteps. These blemishes, faults, that now crossed him like the fresh marks of the first of lashes from a leather whip criss-crossed his skin like a network of reminders of who he really was, and that night he turned off the lights before he invited Sam closer. Under the man’s touches he’d felt whole and perfect again and the fear of the day past left him in full, and he allowed himself to drown in the strange pleasure granted by the younger’s wandering tongue, the feel of it marking down a pattern of its own upon the now flawed skin.

Two nights from then and a hunt later he withdrew from touch, knowing the red markings were now raised like fresh injuries, and he couldn’t let Sam feel them as he did. In the morning he tried to wash them out only to realise that his back was marked by deep, pitted web of scars by his shoulder blades marking the place where his grace had burned away his wings - the tissue was pinkish and shiny and it scared him as much as it disgusted him to look at. His stomach, his hips, his thighs and his arms were now full of smaller slashes, cuts and circular markings, spots where blades had pierced him, and his neck was scarred with a pattern marking down the outline of a chain that had tied him to a wall his death had not destroyed.

The night of that day he showered again as if still hoping he could drive these markers away, but in the pitch black of the bathroom his fingers yet felt the destruction visible upon his form of flesh like it all had been visible in his grace, the poison of all the centuries of torture painstakingly mapping his whole being, wrists still chained, ankles still chained, neck still chained and wings torn out like those of an insect. Easily, just for the fun of it to show him his true worth, the lack of it in its whole gruesome scale, the mask that had been carved upon him that he’d done much to hide in his year after the fall.

A pattern of red strikes marked his face the morning after, and as Sam reached to run his finger down upon the irritated flesh, Gadreel pulled away from him and avoided him for the rest of the day. This was too much for punishment: he’d suffered enough. He told that to God in the light of the setting sun, feeling the whispering wind brush into his neck and hair as his eyes traced the sky where he no longer saw the constellations and the galaxies, the fires of a thousand, a million, stars burning as bright as the sun that was soon hidden behind the horizon’s unforgiving line to make way for the darkness of night.

Sam waited for him in the bedroom, and when Gadreel turned off the lights, he lit a candle instead. The sentry hesitated in the doorway but the orange glow hid the red from his face and he dared to step forwards eventually, and in a few he reached the bed and sat upon it.

"I want you to stop hiding," Sam said clearly but softly, gently, "I miss touching you the way I got to the first nights. I don’t know if it’s something I did or something you feel but you need to come right out with it and tell me so that we can fix it. If you didn’t want that - if you didn’t feel good about what we did - you need to tell me right now. I’m not going to be the next torture you put yourself through. I need you to be honest with me. Please."

But what were the words for the things he experienced? Gadreel turned towards the wall and watched the shadows dance upon the white for a while. A million thoughts raced through his mind and he considered letting out each of them at a time, but nothing ever came out. Sam’s hand reached for his clawed one, the malformed limb like burnt plastic that he couldn’t recognise for his own anymore, and held it like it was still beautiful. The green of the man’s eyes was no longer that at all but golden like the sunset had been, and the expression on him was worried, scared.

"Am I hurting you?" the hunter simply asked after a while, deciding that he’d demanded too much too soon.

Gadreel shook his head, feeling the ghosts of the spikes digging into his throat even as he did so.  
"Under your touch," he replied with defeat in his voice, "I feel as if I was perfect."

"Then why do you keep running from it? You look at me like I’m all you want and when I try to show you that you are what I need, too, you flinch like it burnt. It wasn’t like that before."

"I am… not perfect," the fallen angel said, his expression and voice equally suspicious, watching Sam for any sign of him lying, any sign of him seeing what Gadreel saw - of course he had to see it, too.  
"How can you touch what I’ve become? How can you still wish to stay by my side when I - when I am nothing but a ruin?"

Instead of malice or glee at seeing him hurt, Gadreel could only map surprise in the younger’s eyes. Sam’s gaze tracked his face and his neck and his shoulders and the hand he was holding and he blinked and he frowned and he looked into Gadreel’s eyes again.  
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," the younger admitted with concern, "You’ve been - I can see that you’re hurting but you won’t tell me why."

But it was obvious, wasn’t it?  
Now Gadreel frowned; his fingertips treaded the hem of his shirt, heart beating fast as he wondered if he should just tear the cloth away from hiding the rest of his tainted form. He shook, breath catching in his throat, but when he’d closed his eyes to fight the flood of terror, Sam had already leaned in and their lips brushed together, his opening and Sam’s taking hold with a hint of desperation in the feel and the taste of them.

"If I make you feel perfect," Sam breathed over his mouth, "why won’t you let me?"

Gadreel fought his hand free of the younger’s hold and tore off the shirt. Sam backed off to give him the space and his palm ran over the scarred chest, sliding effortlessly along the surface like it didn’t show the signs of a thousand years of purposefully inflicted pain, like the scars of the suicide wound were not there like they were still bleeding. His mouth twitched, turned into a smile of relief, and he leaned closer to Gadreel to kiss him again even though the fallen angel was too afraid to respond.

"Is this okay?" the hunter asked, his palms sliding over the other’s waist and pressing there gently, hips shifting over Gadreel’s and landing upon him with the gentle warmth inviting the angel closer, perhaps deeper, perhaps all the way to the flesh.

The sentry barely nodded: he felt as if through all the difficulty he had with breathing, he was now for the first time at least gasping oxygen instead of dull, suffocating nothingness that ached within his lungs.  
Sam’s lips slid over his neck, teeth nipping their way softly towards the lobe of his ear and he allowed his own lips to stay parted, each exhale heavy and suggesting a need that he was still holding back. Still covered by two layers of worn cloth, his body was aching with response to the closeness and his fingers, as stiff as they were, reached to caress the younger’s form upon him to invite him further as well, to let Sam know that he was wanted if he only desired to be so.  
A breathless chuckle escaped against the older’s neck and he bent it to give the younger more space, and Sam’s hands were now upon his belt, undoing it and undoing the button and the zipper just the same before reaching to do the same for Gadreel - his hands were firm and confident and his hips rocked with need and the heat of his body echoed the same within the older’s.  
They shed clothes like skin, falling down upon the mattress to kiss and to wrestle not for control but for a comfortable position, and at the end they were side by side, Sam’s legs tangled around Gadreel’s hips and his hands over the long, uneven scars of broken wings along the male’s back, and he was rocking into the touch with his eyes barely open but the vision in them clear as he watched the angel’s each and every reaction.  
There was fondness, love in the way he did all of this, even when his rhythm was rough and primal and raw; he rarely broke the eye contact and if he did it was to throw back his head to let out a moan, a gasp, and to shiver in pleasure, and as his hand descended between them to hold them together as his hips continued to buck into the grip Gadreel could almost feel the need in him to show affection in all the ways that he could. His lips felt like liquid fire poured upon Gadreel’s but the angel responded, heart beating in discord with the younger’s but close enough to feel at home, and it was as if because Sam did not see and he did not feel that suddenly Gadreel didn’t, either; he no longer found all those old, badly healed wounds from his form and instead he could feel that first night’s faultless perfection becoming one with him again until it was his body, like letting the younger take and give and daring to join in himself to mirror his own desire for this union was healing him of all that damage and making him whole again. His release was sudden, almost unexpected, as he’d concentrated upon feeling and living the connection between them rather than the electrified life that pulsed in his veins with the power and strength that was only ever provided by this kind of closeness with another, and as he held back the sound that still broke through he could hear Sam sigh in relief, his hips pressing firmly against Gadreel’s body to allow him the short relaxation and the fulfilling, completing tension that followed soon after as he lived the same experience mere moments after feeling it wash over the angel in full.

The candle’s flame was flickering as their joined aura settled from the fire-like energy that had trembled within it for the past minutes; the shadows upon the ceiling were violet-blue, the light cast before them a warm shade of soft yellow mixing with an earthly shade of brown where the flame could not reach in full strength.

Sam’s arms stayed relaxed around the older’s form even as his legs grew heavier and limp over the other’s hips and thighs.  
"I don’t know what you see," the man muttered quietly and Gadreel could feel his warm breath over his lips past the short distance still, "but I don’t have to, because know that whatever it is, it’s not true. And if you’d just let me, I’d prove that to you every night. I’d do it in the mornings, too, if you’d just… If I could just reach through to you, if you just believed me."

Gadreel thought for a moment, mind hazy and eyes locked upon the tear that contrasted with the faint smile upon the younger’s lips.

"I believe you," he said then, and for this moment, he did.  
His skin was faultless, his wings gone but without a trace, and his fingers were slender once more like none of them had ever broken or gone through living fire.

Sam opened his eyes to look for the lie in him, but there was none and in a while, the smile on him grew stronger and he seemed relieved, happy.  
"With you," he spoke again, "I never feel as scarred, as tainted and ruined as I feel on my own. Whenever I’m here - it’s like I remember that you see me as beautiful, and for once, I believe it again."

Gadreel nodded. Sleep was washing over him but he held onto the moment, finding himself with a smile that didn’t feel as strange and alien as it would have no more than an hour ago.  
"You are beautiful," he noted.

"But it’s your touch that made me that way when nothing else would. You take the faults away and leave me with whatever used to be underneath. It’s like I can breathe again when I’m with you, when you let me have you, when we’re close like this. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I just - I hope I can make you feel even a fraction of that. I hope that I make you feel loved the way you make me feel it."  
  
The quiet around them no longer felt like it was full of eyes exposing all of the angel’s history, his failings and his flaws; now it felt safe, now it felt like home again. He nodded again and closed his eyes.  
"You are where I feel forgiven," he said and brought the younger’s hand in the middle of them, gripping it firmly in his own with their fingers entwined.  
"Where I am whole."


End file.
